Hong Kong democracy movement feels Beijing's pressure

Chu Yiu-ming, left, and Benny Tai Yiu-ting, co-founders of the Occupy Central movement, take part in a recent rally with democracy activists next to the Hong Kong government complex.

Chu Yiu-ming, left, and Benny Tai Yiu-ting, co-founders of the Occupy Central movement, take part in a recent rally with democracy activists next to the Hong Kong government complex. (Alex Ogle / AFP/Getty Images)

Sean Silbert

Is Hong Kong's Occupy Central movement finished, or just gearing up for its next fight?

Hours after mainland Chinese officials announced new rules ensuring that only handpicked candidates could run for Hong Kong’s top leadership position in 2017, local democracy activist Benny Tai Yiu-ting declared a new "era of civil disobedience."

Tai, a co-founder of a movement called Occupy Central that has been pressing for “real democracy” for more than a year, called Sunday for Hong Kong’s 7 million people to stage “wave after wave of protests.” He urged Hong Kongers to participate in sit-ins on major roads and paralyze the city’s financial district – known as Central -- to demand an unfettered field of candidates.

But two days later, Tai, a constitutional law professor at Hong Kong University, seemed to admit defeat. In an interview with Bloomberg News on Tuesday, he remarked that the strategies used by his civil-disobedience movement had failed.

Tai also expressed doubt about the number of people who would participate in any sit-in. He said that any mass sit-ins would have to occur on a public holiday or a weekend to inflict minimal damage on the economy of Hong Kong, a former British territory and major Asian financial hub.

Mainland Chinese officials have warned that any sit-in could cause major damage to the economy and stature of Hong Kong, which returned to Chinese rule in 1997 and was promised50 years of significant autonomy.

The movement has been down before: Just weeks before it rallied nearly 800,000 of Hong Kong’s residents to participate in a nonbinding June referendum on what rules for the 2017 vote should look like, the group was beset with infighting. Yet it managed to rally significant participation in the unofficial vote.

Now, the group is trying to backpedal from Tai’s remarks. In a press release sent out that same day, Occupy Central said: “Hong Kongers won’t accept failure in our road to democracy. We have said that if the government does not keep [its] promise to allow Hong Kongers to have genuine universal suffrage in 2017, we will Occupy Central with love and peace. We will do what we said.”

Hong Kongers won't accept failure in our road to democracy. We have said that if the government does not keep [its] promise ... we will Occupy Central with love and peace.— Occupy Central

The rules announced Sunday will mean that only two or three candidates who are vetted by a special, Beijing-aligned committee will be allowed to run for the top leadership post.

In a phone interview, Occupy Central co-founder Chan Kin-man agreed with Tai that “for us to attain specific goals of true democracy in 2017 is almost impossible. I believe the chance of change is very slim.”

Even so, Chan said, the group has also been gaining support from committed newcomers – particularly academics and professionals. Democracy, he said, "is always a long-term struggle."

According to Chan, Occupy Central leaders still plan to call for a sit-in in a few weeks, although the exact date and location will not be released until the time nears. He expects thousands of people to take part.

“As long as we can maintain a spirit of democracy in Hong Kong, as long as we can survive, it is not a failure,” he said.

Despite warnings from China that any sit-in would lead to chaos and cause economic damage in Hong Kong, Chan stressed that the group’s protests will remain peaceful.

“We believe that people will honor our promise of nonviolence and civil disobedience,” he said.

Sonny Lo, a professor of social sciences at the Hong Kong Institute of Education, said that the movement has to be very cautious, but it is too soon to proclaim that it has failed.

“The movement has not finished, but is entering a strategic phase,” he said. “At this stage, both sides are engaging in political posturing.”

Lo predicts that the movement will shift at some point to another form of civil disobedience. “Students may launch strikes, boycott classes. Some of the activists may mobilize people against the government, such as when Chinese officials visit Hong Kong or the chief executive.”

Lo said public support is divided fairly evenly among those who support Occupy, those against it and those who are neutral – which makes the public opinion battle critical in the coming months because Hong Kong’s legislature must decide whether it can accept the election framework outlined by Beijing.

Robert Chow, leader of the anti-Occupy group Silent Majority, which has warned that any “occupation” of Central would have disastrous consequences for public safety as well as the economy, said he thinks the democracy protesters’ weaknesses are beginning to show.

“The public support for them is not really there,” he said by phone.

Chow expects Occupy Central to mount some sort of protest, but “the effect on the political scene would probably be zero. They could cause some disruption, but it would not be on the scale they would hope for.”

“People,” he said, “will slowly come back to their senses.”

Still, Chow offered grudging respect for Occupy Central.

“I think circumstances have proven they’re not what they claim to be,” he said. “But don’t rule them out yet. Nobody knows what they’re going to do.”